1962
Cartoonist
She is the author of the New York Times bestselling graphic novel “Ann Tenna”, graphic memoirs “Cancer Vixen” and “Just Who the Hell is She, Anyway?” She is also a cartoonist for The New Yorker and a columnist for The W Magazine website. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Glamour and O, The Oprah Magazine.
Marisa Marquetto was born in 1962 in New Jersey. She grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, where she was one of four children. She currently lives in New York. Her father was a pharmacist, and her mother, Violetta, was a shoe designer. In her first drawings, Marchetto drew copies of her mother’s shoe models.
She studied at the Pratt Institute in New York, where she studied painting and eventually received a degree from the New York School of Visual Arts.
In 2004, she married the former owner of the restaurant Silvano Marquetto. Three weeks before the wedding, Marquetto was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite her diagnosis, the wedding went according to plan and she started treatment. She used her breast cancer diagnosis as inspiration for her popular graphic memoir Cancer Vixen. During chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation therapy, she chose to call herself a “cancer vixen” rather than a “cancer victim.” Marchetto drew about her life with breast cancer, which eventually led to her popular graphic memoir, Cancer Vixen.
After Marchetto graduated from the Pratt Institute, she went on to work as an art director at J. Walter Thompson, a large agency on Madison Avenue. There she met her colleague Robert Kirschenbuam. After working for four years at J. Walter Thompson, Marketto and Kirshenbuam left and became the founders of the Kirshenbuam and Bond advertising agency. After working for several years in an advertising agency, Marketto became a senior vice president of Young & Rubicam.
While working at Young & Rubicam, Marketto began creating a comic called She. The heroine of the comic served as her alter ego, and in 1993 the tape became a regular publication in the women’s magazine Mirabella. The cartoon strip followed the heroine, who struggled with what to wear and doubted her life choice. Marketto took a leave of absence from her job at Young & Rubicam to work on her graphic novel “Who the Hell is She Anyway?” She’s autobiography featuring the same character “She from the Mirabella strip”. After the publication of “Who the Hell is She?” in 1994, Marquetto never returned to her work at Young & Rubicam.
In the period 2000-2001, Acocella produced a semi-regular journalistic comic strip The Strip for The New York Times, often on the topic of fashion.
In 2006, Knopf released Marchetto’s graphic memoir “Cancer Vixen: A True Story” about her struggle with breast cancer in 2004-2005. Details in the memoir include that she sought cancer treatment without health insurance, which she allowed to expire. “The Cancer Fox” was included in the top ten most picturesque memoirs of Time magazine. Cancer Vixen was first published in Glamour magazine as a six-page cartoon. In 2006, a book of memoirs with graphics was released, which depicts a cancer-stricken woman who prefers to live stylishly and fiercely, despite the fact that she lives with the disease. Marchetto’s story is considered a notable literary work in the breast cancer community. Her memoirs inspired a culture not to become a victim of breast cancer, but rather to be a “shrew.” In 2013, HBO announced that it was developing a cancer fox film starring Cate Blanchett as Marisa Acocella Marchetto; as of 2020, the film is still in development.
Ann Tenna, released in September 2015 by Knopf Publishing, is a New York Times best-selling graphic novel about an influential gossip columnist who was involved in a near-fatal accident. She comes face to face with her higher Self, who challenges her to change her life for the better. Marquetto said that having a life-threatening breast cancer diagnosis influenced Ann Tenna’s story arc.
Marquetto is currently a cartoonist for The New Yorker.
Reference: Wikipedia, 2018
